Nurse sues Chris Christie for keeping her in 'private prison'

Kaci Hickox, the nurse who did not have Ebola but was quarantined by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during last year's Ebola pandemic, has sued the governor, the former state health commissioner and other state health department officials, alleging that her detention violated constitutional rights.

“I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola. I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s private prison,” Hickox said in a statement released through the ACLU of New Jersey. “My liberty, my interests and consequently my civil rights were ignored because some ambitious governors saw an opportunity to use an age-old political tactic: fear.”

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Hickox, who has registered as a Democrat, was immediately detained upon landing in Newark last October after returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, en route to her Maine home.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, alleging constitutional rights violations, including due process of the law, false imprisonment and casting Hickox in a false light by mischaracterizing her condition.

”The decision to quarantine anyone must be made based on science, not fear and politics,” said Udi Ofer, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey, in a statement. “In holding Kaci Hickox, the governor and the former head of the Department of Health not only violated her basic constitutional rights, but they did so without any scientific foundation. Now, a year later, we are proud to help Kaci vindicate those rights.”

Christie indicated last year, according to an NBC News report, that any complaints about the condition of her quarantine cell were "malarkey" and that she "was inside the hospital in a climate-controlled area with access to her cellphone, access to the Internet and takeout food from the best restaurants in Newark. She was doing just fine."